I guess you could call it ironic. My talents had ostracized me as a child and as a young woman. Who would really want to be friends with someone who could read your emotions as easily as I could? What man would want to be with a woman who could tell if they were lying without any trouble whatsoever? Now, however, my talents and isolated existence have led me to the Zone, a place where I could at least feel useful. This place, this hell, feels almost like home.

The members of my clan respect my abilities, and put their faith in me. My talents have ensured that I maintain a key place within my clan.

Yesterday started out regularly enough. Peter and I had decided to check out some rumors we'd heard about some crazy kind of poltergeist creature in a rail yard about 15 km in from the Zone's northern perimeter. Peter assumed it was just bar talk, but I wanted to look anyway. There was probably a dollar or two to be made. We took the beaten up Lada Niva we kept stashed inside the perimeter and drove it along the rusty rails towards the rail yard. The rails were the best option to drive along, as most of the paths in this area were overgrown with thick vegetation. We'd done this before, and had welded some extra wheels onto extended axels, so that we could ride the rails at a good rate.

We'd been driving for about 10 minutes when I got a flash. I felt the presence of several individuals up ahead, and they knew we were there. They felt almost human, but an alien mental stench pervaded their emotions. Evil, although an abstract word, is the best way to describe what I felt at that moment. I gave a start and grabbed Peter's arm in terror. He looked at me for an instant, but that instant of diversion was enough to ensure that he didn't see the anomaly ahead until it was too late.

Peter turned his attention back to the tracks ahead. The rails ahead were twisted around like demented pretzels; the sure sign of a strong gravitational anomaly. Peter jumped on the brakes and the Niva screeched it's way towards the puckered gravity field. TOO LATE my mind screamed.

"Jump" yelled Peter as he fumbled for the door latch. I instinctively did as I was told, and we both tumbled out of the car seconds before it entered that awful region of destruction. I tumbled along the stony ground, my body armor taking most of the impact. Coming to a stop, I rose to my knees and stared in awed fascination as the Niva was ripped apart. Initially, it just seemed to run off the rails. Then, with several loud cracks and screeches, panels buckled and were torn off. The windows all popped at the same time, producing a crack like a gunshot. Bizarrely, a door spun around in the air for several seconds before shooting away into the undergrowth.

I'd never witnessed a gravitational anomaly so powerful.

Panic gripped me as I again felt those alien emotions impinge upon my mentality. It was a mixture of lust-like greed, intent, excitement and satisfaction. Somehow the anomaly was a trap, and we were it's victims. I looked over to Peter who was rising to his feet on the other side of the track. He looked very small compared to the brooding forest that surrounded us.

"We've got company," I yelled across the tracks as I pulled my faithful automatic hand gun from it's holster. Peter looked at me and nodded at my frightened expression. He knew I could feel what he could not see. He quickly located the pump-action shotgun on the ground that he'd managed to grab before jumping from the cab, picked it up and chambered a shell.

"How many and where?" he asked as we met in the center of the rails. His eyes were never still as he scanned the surrounding undergrowth.

"About twenty up ahead" I said as I pointed to the thick bushes beyond the twisted rails. "I don't know what they are," I added, "but they know we're here. That anomaly was a trap"

"Well, let's not hang around to discuss it" he said as he pulled me in the opposite direction. I immediately followed. I trusted Peter's tactical abilities as much as he trusted my mental gifts.

At that moment a single wail was emitted from the forest in the direction of the creatures that I had sensed. It was joined by another, then another. In a few seconds the forest seemed to be echoing with the inhuman cries of our foe.

We ran. The hunt was on.